So we’re done with the second quarter of 2010. Somewhere past the middle of this month I’ll cough up some real numbers on our sales overall for you data-hounds to chew on. But first, a preamble.

Back at the beginning of the Dresden Files RPG preorder in April, I decided to track daily sales data — at least as expressed through our web-store. It’s been an interesting ride, one that’s now over as I don’t intend to keep tracking day to days from here on out. I’ll share the data and some pretty graphs down below after the cut.

What’s perhaps more exciting, though, is that once we add in the distributor and direct-to-retail orders we’ve processed, DFRPG sales on each volume are in the mid-4000’s — around 75% of what we printed in the first print run. That’s major news because of another statistic I’ve been tracking across the years — Spirit of the Century’s sales numbers. With PDF and print sales combined, SOTC was just a bit past 5,000 units sold (before this quarter’s numbers get added in). It took SOTC since the latter part of 2006 to get to that figure, about 3 and a half years. Dresden Files, meanwhile, has gotten within striking distance of that figure in three months — and with an aggregate price-point between the two volumes that’s three times what SOTC’s cover price is. Huge, huge, huge.

Granted, I have a fat check to write Jim Butcher for his royalties, a $60,000 loan to repay, and probably a $40,000-or-so reprint run (for about 3000 copies of each volume) on the nearish horizon, but I’m at ease because (once the preorder shipments wrap up and I can demonstrate their shipment to PayPal) the money we’ve been drawing in through the Evil Hat webstore pretty much covers all that. The checks that’ll roll in from the distributors in about a month will get to go right into the profit coffer. Rob’s and my taxes will be real interesting this year, I have a feeling.

Anyway, the pretties:

Day to Day Sales

Cumulative Sales Over Time

% Difference Between Volumes in Sales Over Time

Still sitting nicely between 5 and 6 percent. The vast majority of sales are sets, still, at least in direct orders.

That’s great stuff. I am hugely pleased for you folks – it’s a great game, based on a great series of novels, and I am very glad it’s doing so well for you.

Rick

http://jimhenley.livejournal.com Jim Henley (Unlabeled)

This proof that there’s such a thing as well-deserved success is extremely heartening.

http://megevonne.blogspot.com/ meg_evonne

Best wishes on such a successful run! Simply amazing Fred!

http://chopshopzine.wordpress.com Ryan Faricelli

That’s fantastic! Maybe the second printing could find a slightly lower price point? RPG books have become incredibly expensive for the average gamer in the last few years.

http://www.deadlyfredly.com/ Fred Hicks

Ha! No, that’s not likely to be something that can happen. The economics of such things are usually (as in this case) that the second printing is a smaller number of units, and thus have a higher cost per unit printed. If we followed that logic, the cover price of the products should increase, not decrease, in the interests of sustainability and company growth. As it is we keep the cover price the same and use it as a guide to determine what the minimum acceptable size of a reprint run should be (in this case between 2 and 3 thousand).

Neal Dalton

That is really great. I’m glad for the Evil Hat team.

John Powell

Congrats!

Ludomaniac

Do the graphs and table cover all sales? I figured there would be a little spike corresponding with direct sales at Origins.

http://www.deadlyfredly.com/ Fred Hicks

Nope. Like I said up top this is a visualization of the webstore’s sales only. Origins sales were approximately 180 Your Story, 150 Our World, though I’m still waiting to find out exact quantities after DOJ gets a chance to chase down a few declined cards.

Ludomaniac

Ah, I see where you said that now. Caffeine deficiency robs me of my ability to concentrate…

http://www.ritepublishing.com Steve Russell

Congrats!

http://www.andrewd2.com Andrew Betts

Congrats, and after the ninja shipment arrived today gotta say they look awesome

Edward Lynch

Congrats to all Mr. Hicks. Now, can I have my books please? Preordered on April 4th here…

http://www.deadlyfredly.com/ Fred Hicks

Believe me, I’m standing on top of the warehouse as much as I can to get them pushing those things out as fast as they can, but I gotta give them enough space to actually do the work!

http://www.genesisoflegend.com Jason Pitre

I am very pleasantly surprised that your per-unit costs are so low for printing hardcover colour beauties like DFRPG. That comes to what, just over $6 a book for the print? Very impressive, I expected closer to double that even at volume.

Congrats and do enjoy sending that big fat check to Jim.

http://www.deadlyfredly.com/ Fred Hicks

Depends on the book. For Your Story the unit reprint cost at 3000 copies is just under $8, probably just over after shipping gets factored in. For Our World the unit reprint cost at 3000 copies is a little over $5.50. Still, Taylor does good work at a good price, and fast (about a 4 week production timeframe). I’m happy to be using them.

Who is Fred?

Fred Hicks is a dad, a gamer, and a game publisher. He runs Evil Hat Productions, and has done freelance art direction and layout work for the occasional other game publisher. The rest of the time, though, he's looking after his kids, and spending time with his wife. Life is good.